Barclaycard triumphs over Google in race to release UK’s first android payments app

Barclaycard has become the country’s first financial services group to enable contactless payments for Android phones, with the introduction of a new payments feature to its smartphone app.

Revolutionising payments

The credit card provider has confirmed that in November, existing Android customers will be able to take advantage of a new update to Barclaycard’s mobile banking application that will enable their smartphones to make contactless ‘touch and go’ payments.

This feature will allow customers to pay for goods and services in over 300,000 locations nationwide without the use of a debit or credit card.

‘‘Barclaycard has a strong history of innovation and we’re constantly looking for new ways to revolutionise payments,’’ explained Mike Saunders, managing director of digital consumer payments at Barclaycard.

Saunders added that through the new application, customers could manage their bank account on the move, as well as making contactless payments up to £100, which is £70 greater than the current limit for contactless card spending.

The application will also continue to work if their card is lost or stolen, with the user instantly getting another one re-issued.

The managing director concluded his celebration of the app’s release by stating that ‘‘It’s the latest in our range of ‘Pay your Way’ options that allows customers to make payments quickly, easily and conveniently, and makes the Barclaycard app the best in its class.’’

Contactless spending has tripled in the last 12 months

Barclaycard explained their reasons for creating the new Android feature, revealing that less than half (40 per cent) of all smartphones are NFC-enabled, but that number is set to rise to 85 per cent by 2019.

Their research shows that UK contactless spending has tripled within the last 12 months, with the number of transactions up by 134 per cent.

Technology companies around the world are looking at the United Kingdom as a profitable market when distributing contactless payment solutions.

However, according to research, UK customers do not trust Apple Pay, one of the world’s most popular payment applications.

Speaking to iPhone users in the UK, Forrester found that only 27 per cent would put their trust in Apple’s digital wallet, significantly fewer than had faith in PayPal (43 per cent), their bank (41 per cent), a credit card (40 per cent) and Amazon in which 32 per cent of respondents had faith.

Barclaycard’s new release combined with this research may worry the makers of Android Pay. The technology is yet to be released in the UK, but it already seems like Google has a fight on its hands to win over the British market.

I caught up with Guillaume Andre, Head of Marketing, Ingenico Northern Europe, to discuss the implications of a tech giant-payments provider collaboration-led future, and how Ingenico and Google might continue to innovate the POS system in the future.

The future is even closer than we think. The increasing pace of technological change means concepts formerly considered only abstract theories on a distant horizon are already nearly upon us. By Urs Gubser, Head E-Commerce, SIX Payment Services.

“The smart terminal has moved beyond just accepting payments", said Patrice Le Marre, EVP of the Banks & Acquirers Business Unit at Ingenico Group, said of the world's first Google Mobile Services and PCI-PTS v5 certified terminal.

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Pete

in September 17th, 2015 @ 01:45

Great to see another bank going their own way on Tap & Pay (HCE) payments. This is hardly revolutionary for those outside of the UK. Australian Banks and Credit Unions having been live with Tap & Pay provided by payments provider Cuscal since July 2014.